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59 Women Share Their Wisdom After Looking Back At The Mistakes They Made When They Were Younger
Anyone who is past the age of 30 will have at least one “young and dumb” moment that will keep their face locked in a cringe for a good few minutes every time they remember it. These regrettable decisions could include vices they experimented with, ill-advised romantic choices, or financial moves that carry long-term repercussions.
You will find a lot of these themes in the following stories you’re about to read. These are candid accounts of women on Reddit who recall the headshake-inducing times of their youth. Just by reading, you can tell some of these still sting today.
Many of these stories may involve sensitive topics, so proceed with caution. And if you feel like sharing your own experiences, feel free to do so in the comments.
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
Looking for love over learning about myself. So much time on wasted trying to be loved by losers instead of loving me.
RELATED:
#2
The amount of times I was in situations that horrify me looking back as an adult because I wasn’t taught to say “no” when I was uncomfortable.
Roman Arendt 1 day ago (edited)
Parents, your kids are never too young to teach them that "No" is a whole sentence and it NEVER [sic!] means "Yes" or "Maybe" or "I'm not sure". Teach them about their bodily and mentally autonomy (and that includes sèx education that is worth its name).
#3
Not knowing my worth sooner and sticking it out in some pretty awful relationships. I shouldn’t have stayed as long as I did. I lost years of my life. I’m gaining them back now though!
#4
I wish I had stayed single for most of my young adult life. I would have saved a lot of money and time, and been better off in the long run.
#5
Dating a 30 year-old when I was 18. Now that I’m in my 30’s, I look at 18 year-olds and realize that dude was a creep and a loser.
#6
Not appreciating my body more. I was so obsessed with being thinner and prettier and everything in between. I’m now in my 30s and wish I had realized how great I was and talked more positively to myself.
Lessons learned and even though I’m heavier now than my 30s, I’m loving what my body can do and focusing on feeling healthy and confident rather than trying to be someone I’m not.
Fire Singer 1 day ago
My dad was actually a huge part of why I don't have body issues. When I was little I remember him and I looking into mirrors and telling ourselves how gorgeous/handsome/amazing all the good things, we were. And that stuck with me as I'm now 42, clearly overweight, and still don't hate myself. I need to lose weight absolutely, but I don't hate that I've let myself get too big.
#7
Giving someone a second chance when I already knew the first chance was a mistake.
tori Ohno 1 day ago
It depends on what they did. Some people make mistakes and hurt you, but they learn from it and don't do it again. Some people will just do it again. Being hardcore "I don't give second chances" is cold hearted and paranoid, and speaks of a naturally distrusting personality.
#8
Not reporting my attacker because he said I’d be the third report of SA against him, sending him to jail. He said it’d be my fault if he went.
Nicole Weymann 1 day ago (edited)
"Yeah, right. YOU had two strikes and didn't learn. That's clearly MY fault" (/S) - and those two strikes are just the ones that got reported, too. Highly likely that there are any number of incidents that didn't get reported.
#9
40s but I can tell you in my 20s I genuinely tried way too hard to be liked by people I never ever see or hear from anymore. It doesn't matter what anyone thinks, be comfortable with yourself.
Lazy Panda 2 23 hours ago
I think something switches in us when we reach our 40's and we find we increasingly have less s h i t s to give to people.
#10
People pleasing and pouring everything into everyone but myself. Don't do it.
Lila Allen 22 hours ago
Truly wish I had heard "don't set yourself on fire to keep others warm" in my early 20s
#11
I still can't get over the fact that I didn't do a year abroad in uni because of a boyfriend.
GirlFriday 1 day ago
This exact thing is my biggest regret in life. I could have spent a year in France studying art, but instead I stayed in the Midwest US for a stupid boy.
#13
Running up $6,000 in credit card debit on stupid stuff. Took me forever to pay that off and I don't even want to know how much extra I paid in interest.
quentariel 9 hours ago
I also used my credit card balance really fast after getting one at 19, but I'm really glad that the max credit they give for a student here was 1000€. (But for my defence I was having depression and simply didn't have enough money for living and at that moment didn't have enough energy to care either.)
#14
The dudes I wasted my time with
The male friends who were just a**holes to me in the name of jokes. The guys I dated who were unkind to me that I took because I thought I loved them.
#15
Getting s**t faced at a bar to the point where I lost all my friends. Got lost sat on a curb and thankfully was picked up by a group of other girls that got me an uber and sent me home. Only to realize I didn’t have keys to get into my apartment. Only friend that picked up was a guy and I slept in their basement. Then they had to take me home the next morning when my roommate was able to let me in. Idk so many moments for things to go badly. Glad it didn’t. But I was stupid and would d*e if I heard my niece or daughter was doing s**t like that .
#17
How I spelt my kid's middle name. It's soooo cringe, I've actually apologized to her she loves it, thinks it's unique and cool, but I d*e inside whenever I have to write it on anything.
Michael Largey 1 day ago
I just had a chilling thought. How many innocent babies out there are being named "Elon" or "Maga"?
#18
Walking home from a night out with my bestie, and we hear Oasis coming from a block of apartments. We start singing along, they notice, and a half dozen nice boys we'd never met before invited us up to drink with them. We did. First thing I did on arriving was slug someone else's open drink.
Ladies, **DO NOT DO THIS**. In another universe we were cut into tiny pieces and never seen again!
#19
CIGARETTES, they had a hold on me from 18-25 until I got pregnant.
#21
Having a child with the wrong man. I made a lot of excuses for his behavior towards me and it ended with my child seeing things I can’t take back. Trust your gut.
#22
Some of if not ALL the one night stands I’ve ever had.
#24
Not going to therapy sooner. Would have changed my life.
Birgit M 1 day ago
Yeah... I’m in therapy now, and I have to be careful not to dwell on how my life might have turned out if I had started sooner. When I was first told that therapy might be a good idea for me, I was firmly convinced that I had to handle my problems on my own—otherwise, I would have felt like a failure. This was stupid of me, of course. Today, I’m glad I finally accepted help.
#26
Not trusting my gut. I was easily influenced and grew up being a people pleaser. It led to a bunch of crossroads in my life where I knew I should have went one way, but due to external pressure I went the other way. I had a hard time standing up for myself.
I don’t think about what could have been because it truly makes me sick. Everything from my career to homes to relationships has been impacted.
Now that I’m almost 40, I love my life and where I ended up but I spent most of my 20s and 30s regretting major life decisions.
#27
Dating my s****y ex for years. Not finding my current partner sooner. I know that last one sounds ridiculous but about a year ago my current partner and I realized that we were always *this close* to meeting. He worked for a while at the theatre my Dad and I went to every Sunday. My cousin and his friends were both members of this music co-op. Just lots of little things like that.
#28
While at the beach I asked a guy If he could give me a ride in his boat, he did. I got a ride home from the bar from randoms.
I invited a guy I met at the bar back to my place. And then the big bad night. I had c*****e and went to a bar with who I thought was a friend and potential bf, he took my phone battery and keys for my apartment, I think I was d*****d cause the last thing I remember is flashes of me walking to my apartment, couldn't find my keys, back of the building, and then waking up on a pile of snow with a cut on my hip...
I went back to the bar cause I was so confused, it was 3am and the owner was locking up and I asked him for help. I told him where my ex bf lived and he was thankfully a good guy and got me there, my ex bf called the cops and they met us at my place and the 2 guys I was with at the bar were in my place unplugging the tv and xbox. So ya pretty sure I finally got to my 9th life and that was the night I stopped drinking and it's been 12 years since I've had a drink.
Another regret is giving my body away because I thought guys liked s*x so if I have s*x with them they'll like me.. that's not true and you lose a part of yourself when you do that. Have fun but be safe!
#29
I would walk everywhere. Downtown. Alone. Late at night. No phone. Almost every day.
#30
Giving up moving abroad because i wanted to stay with my boyfriend who left me to move abroad 6 months later.
#31
I went to Ozzfest when I was like 12 in a f*****g bikini top and shorts.
Lazy Panda 2 23 hours ago
I'm confused. Why is wearing a bikini top to Ozzfest an issue? Metalheads might not be known for that dress atire, but aa a general group they're friendly enough.
#32
While living abroad I met someone, let my guard down, and we fell for each other quickly - texting all day long, travelling, and taking long weekend trips, etc.
I had no idea he had gotten his ex pregnant (before we met) and they were planning on moving her to the same country to raise their baby together. One day, he stopped texting me back until I demanded a response and that’s when he sent a picture of his baby boy.
Don’t recommend.
#33
1. Blocked out s****l a***e. Guess who still has unresolved intimacy issues, whoop whoop.
2. Racking up lots of debt. I still can't fathom why oh why younger me?
#34
Getting married and having kids with the first and only man I've ever dated. Love my kids but hate solo parenting.
#35
Marrying someone and staying married once I found out that they were a bully.
He was and still is a bully.
#36
It was 2018. I was drunk on the banks of the Hudson River. It was dark and I don’t remember much… except I lost my beautiful one-of-a-kind alpaca fur hat (no alpacas were harmed) that I had gotten from the Union Square Holiday Market a couple years prior.
I think about that hat every year.. I’ve tried to look up the vendors I’ve tried contacting Etsy creators… it’s just gone.
StumblingThroughLife 22 hours ago
The drunk and can't remember much bit - in the dark, and only regretting the hat loss. Things could have been much worse, esp by a river.
#37
Dating a guy who didn’t want me to move 2 hours down south to get a 150% salary increase because he was afraid of me out earning him, also didn’t want to move with me, also didn’t want to marry me. And then kept dating him long distance for 3 more years after that.
#38
Keeping me up until 3:00AM is a bit of an exaggeration, but I think about this pretty often.
My very first job out of college was at a pretty prestigious finance firm in a big city. I had no idea how to be professional or what I wanted to do when I "grew up" and being in that world with so much wealth was overwhelming.
At one point I decided to study for the LSAT and just see how things went. One of the CEO's saw me studying and offered to have the company "help" with school. I didn't know what the meant and a few months later I just quit and found another job. I realized much later that he was offering for the company to pay for my school. I could have just...stayed and got a free law degree when I was young and living in a big city and had very few other obligations.
Maybe law school wasn't my journey, but it could have helped me figure out what that journey might have been. In hindsight it seems so silly to not just "do it for free". I'm lucky to not have many regrets in my life, but this one sticks with me a bit.
#40
Leaving out of anger and disappointment in the middle of a fight with my boyfriend. Drove around for 15 minutes, came home and he had k****d himself.
#42
Not learning about financial literacy and setting myself up for success with a solid career. Was a super artsy teenager, attempted an English degree after graduating highschool, dropped out and worked in hospitality/service for way longer then I should have with the thought that as long as I was working things were fine because I had a job that could "support" my hobby (writing). Am now early thirties going back to school for nursing and wish I had just done it at some point in my twenties instead.
#43
Dating a married man who claimed to be in an open marriage.
TheWickedOne 9 hours ago
Wouldn't you ask for proof... if you were into that sorta thing... confirmation from the wife or something?... who just flat out believes b******t like this?
#44
Not being open to dating and normal social life. I grew up in a more conservative country and moving to the US I adapted super well except for this part of my life. It took me way too long to date, and now at 40s while I’m very successful and have built a wonderful life, I’m single and likely will never partner up.
#45
Not being emotionally smarter. Every time I had an issue with a friend, I'd just cut them out of my life instead of trying to work things out.
Ali 11 hours ago
This one I get. I am not fantastic at subtle communication, so when friends were pushing my boundaries I just straight out told them. Somehow, this was out of the ordinary enough way of communicating coupled with seemingly out of character for my apparently endless patients that I was not believed. I could and should have cared enough about friends to try and communicate better rather than cut them out and blank them from my life. I look back on some of them and think I was cruel for the lack of warning I gave that they were overstepping before I withdrew my friendship.
#46
I’m 41 and just threw some water at a non-aggressive wasp nest to make sure they were still in there. Guess who just got stung? Will probably still be haunting me at 3 am. Never too old to make stupid decisions!
#47
Staying with someone for most of my 20s that gave all the red flags. He even kissed a supposed friend within the first few months of us being together in front of me at the nightclub, but I still stuck by him because of "love".
Many issues turned out continued to happen but because he was my first proper love, I felt like I deserved it and this was how things were meant to be.
Turns out... I didn't deserve any of that. I still deal with elements of trust issues and require assurance which I've worked through via therapy, but the insecurity still haunts me.
#50
40s - Got married at 19, divorced at 27. Took on far too much responsibility and left a shell of myself.
I should have spent more time alone, had fun and put myself first.
#51
Didn’t follow my own instincts. Continued to push through something I knew I couldn’t do bc it thought I wouldn’t be able to support myself if I took time to heal. I should have waited, used available financial resources, gotten my health sorted out, before it bit me in the a*s and led me to a career failure, and finally physical disability. Take care of your emotional and physical self!
#54
Oh and attending the university I went to. I had a 4.0 GPA with volunteer work, excellent LORs, an exceptional SAT score, and years of extracurriculars. I ended up choosing a school whose medium accepted GPA was 2.1. There was no research opportunities (something I really need now that Im trying to get into grad school), it was a dry, commuter campus. No parties, in a rural community, with people who thought Paramore was edgy. I should hve transferred but I had convinced myself that that was the equivalent to dropping out entirely for whatever reason. Just an overall awful experience.
#55
I regret not putting myself out there more. In my early 40s feeling so behind because I’ve barely done anything.
#58
Dating a close friends ex boyfriend. I was so stupid and excited about getting attention from a cute guy, I totally neglected my friend and her feelings. Dumb mistake I made at 20. Never again!!!
#59
When I got so belligerent my freshman year of college I woke up in a giant field, climbed a fence in the dark, fell off said fence and smacked my head on the concrete. Walked two miles in the wrong direction and ended up at a McDonald’s a ways from campus. The area I went to school is known for human trafficking. I still can’t believe I did that/ came out with nothing but a bad hangover….
What do you think ?
Bored Jellyfish 1 day ago (edited)
My list is embarrassingly long. Fortunately, I’m watching my own offspring NOT make any of those mistakes. That makes me very happy.
meeeeeeeeeeee 1 day ago
We are not born all-knowing. The mistakes have to be made in order to learn not to let it happen again.
Luke || Kira (he/she) 1 day ago
My "young and dumb" woman thing was thinking I was a man and not doing the introspection sooner
Bored Jellyfish 1 day ago (edited)
My list is embarrassingly long. Fortunately, I’m watching my own offspring NOT make any of those mistakes. That makes me very happy.
meeeeeeeeeeee 1 day ago
We are not born all-knowing. The mistakes have to be made in order to learn not to let it happen again.
Luke || Kira (he/she) 1 day ago
My "young and dumb" woman thing was thinking I was a man and not doing the introspection sooner
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